Impossible Things

by Robin Stevenson

  In the kitchen, Ben was perched on a stool, eating a bowl of toxic-looking purple cereal and balancing a heavy book on the edge of the counter. I made some toast and peanut butter and poured a glass of milk; then I pulled another stool up to the counter and sat down beside him. He was absentmindedly stirring his cereal with his spoon while he turned pages with his other hand.

  I peeked at the book he was reading. Future Tech: Innovations in Transportation. Typical Ben material. He might have no friends, but at least he was a genius. Presumably at some point he’d join Mensa and find other geniuses to hang out with. I, on the other hand, was just friendless. Not a genius. Not an artist. Not a brilliant engineer. Not anything special at all.

  It was barely even light out when we left the house. A bank of heavy clouds hung near the horizon, and I wondered if it was going to snow again. The inside of my nose crinkled with each breath. I yanked my favorite paisley scarf up over my chin and buried my hands in my coat pockets. I’d forgotten my gloves, but I couldn’t be bothered going back for them.

  Ben was quiet. He was funny that way. Sometimes he’d chatter nonstop about whatever his current thing was—magnetic-levitation trains or jellyfish or the bubonic plague. And then other times, he’d go hours without saying a word. I was glad today was a quiet day. I felt bad about what I’d said yesterday, but I hadn’t forgotten about what he’d said either.

  We were halfway across the schoolyard when a tiny elf-like girl appeared beside us.

  “Hi, Sydney,” Ben said. He looked at me. “See you later.”

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  I asked, curious.

  He shuffled his feet a bit but finally said, “Sydney, this is Cassidy. She’s, um, my sister.”

  Um, my sister. Like it just about killed him to admit it.

  Sydney grinned at me. Pointy ears stuck out from under her blue woollen hat. “Good morning, Cassidy. A pleasure to meet you.”

  I nodded. Another freak. “Hi.” I watched the two of them scurry off toward the school.

  I couldn’t believe it. Even Ben had a friend.

  By the steps leading up to the school doors, Amber was showing her newly manicured nails to Madeline, Chiaki and a couple of other girls. Her nails were a hard shiny pink with tiny white daisies painted on them. She stopped talking and let her hands fall slowly to her sides when she saw me. “Oh, look. It’s Cathidy. Nithe pants, Cathidy. Thalvation Army?”

  I glared at her. “You got it, Amber. How about yours? Child labor in some third world country?”

  “She is such a freak,” Amber said to her friends, not even bothering to answer me. The other girls laughed as if Amber had said something so hysterically funny that they could barely contain themselves.

  My stomach hurt. Chiaki had been my best friend, back when we were younger. We went to Brownies together in third grade. Seriously. We made friendship bracelets and played this game where you had to make thumbprints and draw faces on them and exchange them with all the other Brownies. I’m a thumbuddy, you had to say. Of course, with my lisp, somebody and thumbuddy sounded pretty much the same.

  Anyway, I was used to Madeline and Amber being mean, but even though Chiaki had dumped me and joined the enemy halfway through grade six, I hated seeing her with them. My eyes suddenly felt hot and prickly. I pushed past the girls and ran into the school and down the hall.

  Victoria was on her way out of the washroom just as I was heading in, and I practically knocked her over.

  She caught my arm and pulled me back inside. “Hey, are you okay?”

  I brushed tears aside with the back of my hand. “Yeth. Yes.”

  “Was it those girls again?”

  I nodded. “Always. I try not to care.” I didn’t know why I was telling her all this. It wasn’t something I usually talked about.

  “Amber’s so mean all the time. I don’t get why she’s popular.”

  “Better to be on her good side, I guess. Everyone sees how she treats the kids she doesn’t like.” I shrugged. “People are scared of her.”

  “You don’t seem scared.”

  I made a face. “Newsflash: I’m a good actor.”

  Victoria laughed; then she sighed. “Every school I’ve been to has had girls like her,” she said. “You know. The kind who start a stupid little club where they can decide who’s in and who’s out.”

  “They let Chiaki in,” I muttered. “She used to be my friend.”

  She wrinkled her nose sympathetically. “You wouldn’t want to hang out with them anyway.”

  “No, I’d just like them to leave me alone.”

  Victoria opened her mouth and then closed it again.

  “What were you going to say?”

  “We could start our own club,” she said. Her eyes were bright behind her glasses and her freckled cheeks were suddenly pink.

  I looked into the mirror and adjusted my hat. “Yeah, you and me and no one else.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged. “We’ll see. Anyway, come on. We’ll be late for class.”

  The bell rang. Crap. My heart sank. I’d seen how Mr. McMaran reacted to lateness. “Victoria…we’re so dead.”

  She laughed. Of course, she hadn’t seen McMaran— McMoron—in action yet.

  He was in full rant mode about last week’s math test when we entered the room. He broke off and stared at us. “So you think you can walk in here anytime you please? Whenever you feel like it? Huh? Is that what you think?”

  His heavy face was several shades darker than its usual red; it was bordering on purple. His mouth was open and flecks of spit had collected at the corners. Not pretty.

  I shook my head. “I apologize. Umm…” I couldn’t think of an excuse. Anyway, the less I talked the better. There was a reason I’d said I apologize instead of I’m sorry: no letter s.

  “I hate excuses. Don’t give me excuses.” He thwomped his hand on his desk as if he’d rather be hitting me. “And please address me as Sir.”

  “Ye…Okay.”

  Thwomp. “Now!”

  I swallowed. “Thir. Sir.” I corrected myself, but it was too late. It only drew attention to my slipup. Amber and Madeline were nudging each other, blond ponytails bobbing with delight.

  McMoron smirked, enjoying my discomfort. Then he turned to Victoria and shook his big head. “The new girl. Late already. Not an auspicious beginning.” He stood up and put his coffee mug on his desk. “If you can’t accept responsibility for your own behavior, then there will be consequences.”

  I hated him. Hated him with every little cell in my body. I’d told Mom a hundred times how mean he was and she always said the same thing: Oh, Cassidy, don’t exaggerate.

  McMoron strode toward us. “The two of you can stand over here in the corner for the rest of the morning.” He grabbed my shoulder with one hand and Victoria’s with the other and shoved us toward the front of the room.

  I turned my head to the wall. I thought I might start crying out of sheer helpless fury, but I wouldn’t give Amber and Madeline the satisfaction of seeing my tears. Behind me, I could hear McMoron’s footsteps returning to his desk. Then I heard a deafening crash and the sound of splintering wood.

  I spun around. The teacher was sprawled on the floor, his chair broken and overturned beside him. Everyone was staring at him, wide-eyed and shocked. He struggled to his feet, his face flushed and eyes bulging. “Just tripped,” he barked. “No reason for you all to stop working!”

  He picked up a piece of chalk from the blackboard tray, but as he stepped toward the chalkboard it slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor. He turned toward me as he bent to pick up the pieces, and I quickly turned away to face the wall again.

  Then I noticed something strange: Victoria’s eyes were closed. Her hands were pressed against her temples, and there was a look of intense concentration on her face.

  Behind us, Mr. McMaran was swearing his head off in a way that I couldn’t imagine the principal or our parents wou
ld approve of. “All right!” he bellowed. “Here is another math exercise!” Chalk squeaked against the blackboard. “You have thirty seconds. And I expect better results this time.”

  I waited for the sound of pencils scribbling frantically, but there was complete silence in the room. I peeked over my shoulder. Nathan’s mouth was hanging open and his eyes were so wide they looked like they might pop right out. He wasn’t moving. No one was moving. Then I heard a couple of smothered giggles. I turned right around to look at the class. They were all staring at the board. Mr. McMaran had written something across it, but it was sprawling, full of weird symbols and completely unreadable. I couldn’t even tell if it was a math exercise at all, let alone decipher what it said.

  I turned to Victoria. “Look at the board,” I whispered.

  She pressed her fingers harder against her temples and ignored me.

  “Victoria!” I nudged her, but she didn’t budge.

  Something was going on. Something seriously weird.

  Four

  Muffled giggles were spreading across the room. Joe was chuckling out loud; Felicia was grinning like I’d never seen before; and even Nathan, who was usually scared to breathe, had his hands pressed against his mouth. Everyone was on the edge of completely losing it and only our fear of McMoron was preventing us from collapsing into helpless laughter.

  All except Victoria. She had finally turned to face me, but her face was pale and tense.

  Mr. McMaran pounded on his desk. Thwomp. Thwomp. “What is so funny? Stop that this instant!” He stepped toward the class, his face dark with anger. He grabbed his travel mug, but it leapt out of his hand and smashed to the floor. I could barely even hear the crash over the roar of laughter in the room.

  “What on earth is going on in here?” Mrs. Goldstein, the principal, came running through the door, and the laughter cut off abruptly. “I could hear the noise clear down the hall. My goodness…” Her eyes flicked around the room, taking in the writing on the board, the broken chair, the travel mug. “Mr. McMaran?”

  He just stood there, shaking his head. For a moment, I almost felt a little sorry for him. He looked so confused. “I’m not…I don’t…” Shaking his head, he stumbled out of the classroom, slamming the door behind him.

  “Well,” Mrs. Goldstein said flatly. “Well.” She looked around the room. “Can someone please enlighten me?”

  No one said anything for a minute. Then Joe raised his hand. “I don’t know, Mrs. Goldstein. Mr. McMaran kind of flipped out.”

  Mrs. Goldstein raised her eyebrows. “Flipped out?”

  Joe just nodded. “Yeah, totally.” He nodded at the chalkboard. “That’s our math exercise.”

  She glanced at it and frowned.“Is his handwriting always like that?” She studied it for a long minute, and her eyebrows flew up. “Differential calculus? For grade seven? That’s…odd.” She let out a long sigh. “Excuse me a moment. Please read your books, or work on whatever you were doing. I’ll make arrangements.” She headed out the door.

  I leaned toward Victoria. “Wow.”

  “Mmm.”

  “That was bizarre. He really lost it.”

  She giggled. Her eyes were bright and the color was returning to her face. “Yeah.”

  “Are you okay? You looked sort of funny.”

  “I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Fine.” Her voice sounded funny: tight and anxious.

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  “Well, I am.” She turned away from me. “Drop it, okay?”

  I pulled back, feeling a bit hurt. “Sorry.”

  The door opened, and Mrs. Goldstein stepped back into the room. “I’ll be taking the class for the remainder of the morning,” she said.

  By lunchtime it was snowing and windy. You might think that arctic conditions would be a reason to stay indoors, but according to Mrs. Goldstein, twenty degrees below zero wasn’t cold enough for that. Everyone was whispering to each other, buzzing with questions and gossip as we funneled down the hall. He was drunk, I heard someone whisper. Mrs. Goldstein was sniffing that puddle around his travel mug.

  I could believe it. Actually, it would explain a lot. But I had something else to think about, something no one else had seen: the strange look on Victoria’s face while it had all been happening.

  I grabbed her elbow. “Hey, come with me?”

  “Okay.” She shrugged on her jacket, tugged a striped wool hat over her hair and followed me outside.

  The air was basically vaporized ice. “This is abusive,” I muttered, trying to take shallow breaths. “The teachers all get to sit in the staff room. I swear, even my lungs are getting frostbite.” There was a sheltered alcove beside the stairs, and we huddled inside it, but even out of the wind it was bitterly cold. And of course, today had to be the day I forgot my gloves.

  We tucked ourselves into the corner and sat down on a piece of cardboard. It did nothing to stop the cold ground from sucking every last bit of heat out of my body. I pulled my knees up to my chest. Now that I was sitting here with Victoria, it seemed a bit silly to think she somehow had something to do with what happened in class. I didn’t know why she’d had that weird look on her face, but probably she’d just had a headache or something.

  It hadn’t looked like a headache though. It had looked like she was concentrating. Like she was doing something.

  “Brrrr!” Victoria said, wrapping her arms around herself. “It is soooo cold!”

  “No kidding.” I pushed my thoughts aside, looked at her and laughed. “Brrrrr!” I mimicked.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I don’t know. Brrrr. It sounded funny. Like something my mother would say.”

  She laughed too. “Brrrr!”

  It felt good to laugh with someone. Actually, it felt better than good. So probably I shouldn’t wreck it by asking her if she’d done something in class. Something impossible. Definitely I shouldn’t. She’d think everyone was right about me. Crazy Cathidy Thilver.

  But I couldn’t get it out of my head.

  “That was pretty wild, huh?” I ventured. “McMaran losing it like that?”

  Victoria’s forehead creased and she stared at the ground for a moment. “I hate bullies,” she said, so softly that I had to lean toward her to hear.

  “Yeah, sure. Me too.” I caught my breath. “Victoria?”

  Her face was closed off, warning me not to pry. But I had to know. I gave her a challenging look. “So?”

  “So what?” She didn’t meet my eyes.

  “Victoria! Come on. You can tell me.” I didn’t want to say what I thought—it sounded too weird—but I was sure I was right.

  “Tell you what?”

  I leaned toward her. “Look, I know this sounds crazy but, well, I saw you! You—you made it all happen somehow.”

  Victoria’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She shook her head. “Cassidy, don’t say anymore, okay? Please? Just forget it.”

  She wasn’t denying it, and that was as good as admitting it, as far as I was concerned. “So you did do it! I knew it! That is so awesome. How did you do it?” I lowered my voice. “It was magic of some kind, wasn’t it?”

  She scrambled to her feet, brushing tears away with the back of her hand. “You don’t get it! You don’t understand anything. And don’t say anything about it to anyone!”

  “Victoria, don’t be mad. I won’t say anything, honest!” I reached out to her, but she was already running across the schoolyard.

  Five

  After lunch I headed straight back to the classroom and got there before anyone else. I was furious with myself for opening my big mouth. I slipped into my back row desk and slumped down, resting my head on my folded arms. Then I noticed that something was different. For the first time all year, the blinds had been opened, and even though the sky outside was gray, the room was filled with light.

  A hand brushed my shoulder lightly. I looked up.

  “Are you okay? What’s your name?” The woman h
ad curly red hair and a wide smile that showed a mouthful of braces. Since when do adults wear braces? Hers even had blue elastics which matched her shirt.

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled. “My name is Cassidy Silver.”

  “I’m Ms. Allyson. I’m subbing for Mr. McMaran.” She tilted her head to one side, suddenly thoughtful. “Silver. I don’t suppose you’re related to Molly Silver, by any chance?”

  I nodded, surprised. “Yeah. You know my mother?”

  Ms. Allyson shook her head and smiled. “Only her work. But I’m a big fan. A friend of mine has one of her paintings. I could look at it for hours.”

  I nodded. I wouldn’t say this to Ms. Allyson, or to anyone else of course, but I don’t really like Mom’s paintings that much. They’re kind of weird: all browns and depressing dark colors with bits of glass and feathers and things stuck on them. And people say all kinds of stuff about them that I don’t understand. After her last show, one critic wrote that she was a brilliant artist whose work “captured the frenetic anxiety of our times.” Whatever that means. Another one said that her paintings looked like kids’ summer camp projects. Dad was furious about that one, but Mom just laughed.

  “Are you an artist too?” Ms. Allyson asked.

  “No, not really.” I hesitated. “I mean, of course I like art.”

  “Well, you should definitely be looking forward to the big art contest then.”

  “What art contest?”

  “Mr. McMaran didn’t tell you about it?” She raised her eyebrows. “Wait until everyone is here and I’ll fill you in.”

  The other students all filed in, but there was no sign of Victoria. The desk beside me sat empty. Now that a bit of time had passed, I could think of all kinds of explanations for what had happened in the morning’s class: McMaran fell off the chair and dropped the chalk because he was drunk; he wrote that weird stuff on the chalkboard because…well, maybe he used to teach high school math and he just forgot where he was. Anyway, I was sure there was an explanation that didn’t involve magic. My cheeks felt hot as I remembered what I’d said: It was magic of some kind, wasn’t it?